DRUG WAR = BIG GOVERNMENTMemo to Republicans: It’s Big Government, Stupid!
Despite their repeated threats to stay home if Republicans deviated from a commitment to conservative social issues, it wasn’t the Religious Right that deserted Republicans in 2008 (or 2006, for that matter). Turnout among self-described members of the Religious Right remained steady from 2004 to 2008, and these voters remained loyally Republican. Roughly 70 percent of white evangelicals and born-again Christians voted Republican in 2006, and 74 percent in 2008, essentially in line with how they have been voting for the past two or three decades.
It was suburbanites, independents, and others who were fed up with the Republican drift toward big government who stayed home — or, worse, voted Democratic in 2008. Republicans carried the suburbs in both 2000 (49 to 47) and 2004 (52 to 47), but in 2008, suburban voters — notably wealthy, college-educated professionals, many of whom consider themselves moderate on social issues but economically conservative — voted for Barack Obama by a margin of 50 to 48. The switch among voters in the suburbs of Columbus, Charlotte, and Indianapolis, for instance, was largely responsible for moving Ohio, North Carolina, and Indiana into the Democratic column. Democrats also continued their gains in the more independent, libertarian West.
And guess what? The libertarian West is anti-prohibition. Doesn't give a rats ass about gay marriage. And they think that government has no place in their or their mate's vaginas.
Now are they a majority? Hell no. Are they the people who swing elections? Hell yes.
If the Rs go back to their culture war ways they will deserve to lose. I promise you this: I will vote Republican in the next election, probably the one after. But if the Rs get all Culture War on me I'm going to speak against them every chance I get. Just to ruin their days. Kind of like a bad haircut only worse.
I'm a proud member of The Leave Us The F* Alone Coalition.